Changes

In 1937, Furman University President Bennette Geer partnered with John D. Rockefeller’s General Educational Board to bring a new form of lifelong learning to the Southeast through the Greenville County Council for Community Development (GCCCD). Inspired by the work of a Columbia University doctoral student, Geer led the university to develop an experimental design for community-centered improvement program that married town and gown in a whole new way. The vision for this initiative was steered by a coalition of faculty and students from Furman’s Sociology, Political Science, and Education Departments and a 24-person “County Council,” that included governmental officials, presidents of service organizations and educational leaders. During this period of Furman's history, teachers used innovative teaching methods that crossed institutional, racial and socioeconomic boundaries to put theory into practice. A course taught on farm mechanics built flues for houses in low-income communities. Agriculture classes visited Clemson University’s model farm and learned to build “hog homes". Other community-based projects included surveys of mill village hygienic facilities and conditions at rural black schools, support for community-wide vaccinations, improved health services, food preservation and lifelong learning (Bainbridge, 2010).

While halted during World War II, it was re-started in 1946 under Greenville City Schools and the Adult Education Division of the State Department of Education. Today, Furman still stands strong as a center for engaged research, creative problem solving and lifelong learning through the efforts of the Herring Center for Continuing Education, the Riley Institute, the Shi Center for Sustainability and a host of other faculty and student-led initiatives.